On Earth
by Amplesound
Summary: As Ryan Stone catapults towards Earth, Cpt Benjamin Miles and his crew desperately try to find the best way to deal with the situation until they are eventually presented with the most stunning moment of their lives. (potentially anti-climatic, now that I have written that...)


Captain Benjamin Miles was a middle aged man and head of the Mission Control Centre at NASA and he sat on a chair that balanced on its hind legs while his feet were crossed on the desk in front of him, his fingers tapping each other in a pyramid, his thoughts way out in space, with Mission Specialist Ryan Stone and Kowalski.

They had lost all communications with them about 13 hours before this moment, the last thing the Captain of the Explorer mission said was, "you're a go, Matt" to Kowalski as he set off to rescue Dr Stone… then they got, "Man down!" and that was it.

Miles had been sitting like he was then ever since, waiting for news, for a revelation! There was no way to track them on Explorer, the shuttle had been completely obliterated and the ISS also had a communications black out still running and something had taken out the camera so they could not see a single thing. Dr Stone and Commander Kowalski were braving space alone. The very thought of being alone in space made him nervous, _actually _being out there, though…Good God and it was Dr Stone's first mission too. What a start. He didn't expect to have her say she wanted to go again anytime soon when she got back…

If she got back.

Miles took a shaky breath and looked over at his team; the Captain of the Explorer waiting anxiously as five other members worked on trying to get communications back…five.

"Anything?"

"Not yet, Sir,"

"God Dammit," he looked up at the blank screen before him, the launch screen, where the launches were filmed from the view of the rocket looking down. It never failed to have him in awe every time they watched one take off.

The technology they had now enabled them to have cameras on all their space crafts and allowed space to be a visual free-for-all down at NASA and made general communication to and from space as well as to other NASA equivalents across the globe easier .

"How about now?" he asked despite knowing no more than five minutes must have passed,

"Still nothing, Sir," bless them for sounding so calm,

"Do we have any idea what the problem is?"

"Not really, I mean, all that happened was that everything was thrown by the debris but – there's no obvious damage,"

Miles snorted,

"Of course there isn't," he muttered irritably, "Please continue,"

"Yes, Sir,"

A few more moments passed and then he heard it. A vague cackle from one of their radios which made Miles freeze and all the techies turn in dismay!

"This …Miss…Stone… ISS …Shen…"

Miles almost fell off his chair in his haste to get to the radio, dragging one of the techies with him,

"Dr Stone!" he pointed at the frequency, "Where is that?"

The young technician sat down and started pressing all sorts of buttons, rewiring this, clicking on that, code,

"It's not the ISS,"

"Where the hell is she then? And is Kowalski with her?"

"Uh…" he pressed a few other buttons, trying to clear the white noise, "The frequency appears to be coming from a Chinese Space Shuttle, the Shenzou,"

"The Shenzou? My God…that's been falling for months; they've just made the last train…can you hack it?"

"It might take some time,"

Miles had _no_ time; he straightened and pointed at another young worker sitting at his computer looking rather shocked,

"Get China's Control Centre on the line, tell 'em we want access to their Space Shuttle the Shenzou!"

The man nodded and suddenly the room was buzzing, everybody tapping into the same frequency, trying to clear the fray, trying to get communication and visual for it was so close and yet so far,

"Hack it if you can," Miles added to the techie below him, "We'll see who gets there first,"

A few more taps and suddenly someone yelled,

"I GOT HER!"

He pulled out his chord that connected the sound waves to his ear phones unleashing the booming voice of Dr Ryan Stone upon all inside Mission Control, her voice laced with hysteria,

"I have a bad feeling about this mission," – there was a loud bang, a thud and more than a few rattling space shuttle sounds that made Miles worry, it would appear that the Shenzou was falling apart and there was an absent presence; Where was Kowalski?

Ryan laughed fearfully, "Reminds me of a story,"

A particularly loud bang made Miles wince and his knees buckle as Ryan cried out in dismay,

"Ok, never mind the story, Houston, never mind the story…"

"I've hacked in, Sir, but I can't get the communications up – I'll keep trying though,"

But Miles was on the space shuttle with Stone, the room had gone quiet and was listening to Dr Stone with such intensity that it would seem that they were _all_ on that shuttle with her. She gave her point of view, she gave her options and she weighed her chances and let it be said, mentioned one last shout out to Kowalski who was breaking Anatole's record by a time too long for anyone to not cry over… all on the radio and blow him down, if Miles didn't get blurry eyed.

A massive crumble erupted from the frequency and Stone cried out again,

"What's happening?" Miles demanded,

"She's detaching, Sir,"

"That is _not_ what a detachment sounds like!"

"In all fairness, Sir, who the hell knows what detachment sounds like in a place where no sound is detected,"

Miles only glanced down at the rigid man – the hope and fear shared.

But it was true, the Shenzou had been floating around up there for months, out of use, out of practice; there was no way that it would be an easy ride home for Dr Stone and in his soul of souls, Miles knew that but it still rattled him. And in the end, there was no more to do on their part; Dr Ryan Stone was on her way.

They could hear the rumble, moan and groan of tearing iron and parts being lost to the big black alongside the grunts of Stone as she tried to remain calm as she catapulted towards earth.

Miles hadn't realised he was holding his breath until he needed to breathe,

"I've got a visual!" the techie sitting beside Miles was suddenly on his feet, breathless, "I've got the camera on the shuttle working; it looks as bright as day but…my God,"

Suddenly the screen at the front of the room burst into life and Miles had to squint quite suddenly for the light was indeed brighter than was anticipated,

"She's on fire,"

Then it was all that existed, all that mattered, the Shenzou and what was visible around though it was not much. Bits of Shuttle could be seen being ripped off of it and suddenly gone while others simply parted from the body and glided beside it, flame sprouting from the nose, as the rogue piece of iron shot through space at a speed faster than anyone could imagine!

Earth, when it came into view, looked bluer than blue, a gigantic Crystal orb, growing gradually as she approached it. Before long, a piece of debris broke from the front of the Shuttle and hurtled directly towards the Camera; Miles ducked out of pure instinct as the camera was hit and sent hurtling away, adrift in the open; no more visual of Shuttle and debris,

"Dammit," Miles cursed, still recovering from the shock of the moment, "Dammit,"

Until the most stunning moment of all floated into their view once the camera had stopped spinning so violently; it took a few moments for Miles and the rest of the crew to understand, no less to fathom what was happening. The view that had so wistfully been presented to them was more picturesque than anything Miles had ever seen; it was immaculate and demanded greatness, a catastrophe so suddenly etherealised as the shuttle plummeted towards earth in an orange haze surrounded by bits of loose shuttle presented in the same manner; all this in front of the back drop of Earth, so simply known as 'home'.

It was as if they were coming upon a new planet and Stone, soaring towards it, was an alien. Miles' eyes were drawn out to a window nearby and found himself searching the sky for signs of life and then having found none, returned his attention to the screen. The specks of ship and fire deteriorating into atmosphere until it last it was gone and all they had was the blackness, and occasionally the earth, to look at and, not to mention, the white noise that had come back in place of Stone's voice. Given her circumstances, nobody worried about it anymore; there was nothing they could do.

"I've got through to the tracker, Sir,"

Miles looked down at the quiet techie who sat quite, quite still,

"She just needs to give us one piece of information,"

"Her position," Miles finished, "Very good,"

Suddenly the radio splashed and the sound of coughing could be heard, one of the Mission Controllers were on it before Miles could give the order,

"Mission Specialist Doctor Ryan Stone, this is Mission Control," he was saying, "what is your position? Send us your position and we will send a search party out immediately,"

No answer, just more water,

"Doctor Stone, what is your position? Where are you?"

Still no response, but the man Miles had ordered to get on the phone to China was writing down what seemed like the co-ordinates they needed, his pencil sweeping across the page furiously until he merely put down the phone and stood up, power walked over to Miles and presented him with the information he had just received,

"Dr Stone's co-ordinates, Sir," he finalised, "Exact,"

Miles nodded and began to move, a new feeling washing over him, not quite relief; that had come and gone upon Ryan Stone's arrival in, for all they knew, the ocean. No, now was a time for fear and hope, once more. Fear that she had not made it out of the shuttle and sank to the depths and drowned. Hope…hopes for that she hadn't.


End file.
